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DEATH OF LINCOLN, 



i*iiocii:Er>i]>rGs 



SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS. 



PRESENTATION OP THE BAR RESOLUTIONS IN RE- 
GARD TO MR. LINCOLN'S DECEASE. 






CHICAGO: 

J. W. MIDDLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS, 19G LAKE STREET. 

1865. 



ADDRESSES 



Hon. J. D. Caton and Justice Breese. 



Wedkesday of last week having been tlie 
day appointed at a recent meeting of the 
Bar for the presentation to the Supreme 
Court of the resolutions passed by them, 
expressive of their affection and respect for 
our lamented late Chief Magistrate, at an 
early hour the court room Avas filled to its 
utmost capacity by ladies and gentlemen 
to witness the solemn and impressive pro- 
ceedings. The court room, and indeed the 
whole interior of the building, was tastefully 
and elaborately draped in mourning, and 
over the bench was suspended a portrait of 
the late President, handsomely enwreathed 
in evergreens and the emblems of grief. 

At eleven o'clock the court met, the full 
bench being present, the Hon. P. H. Walker, 
Chief Justice ; Hon. Sidney Breese and 
Hon. Chas. B. Lawrence, Justices. 



Tlie court l)eing opened by proclamation, 
tlie Hon. J. J). Caton, formerly Chief 
Justice, rose arid addressed it as follows : 

EEMAEKS OF JUDGE CATON. 

Mai/ it ])lea8e your Honors : 

Tlie solemn duty has been assigned me of 
formally announcing to this Court the death 
of Abraham Lincoln, and to present to the 
Court the resolutions which the Bar has 
adopted expressive of our appreciation of 
the deceased, and of our bereavement at his 
loss, and to ask that they be spread upon 
the records of the Court. 

These are the 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE BAR. 

"Being assembled to express our grief for 
the sudden death of the President of the 
Republic, to mourn for the loss of an emi- 
nent member of our profession, and to pay 
a merited tribute of respect to the memory 
of Abraham Lincoln, we, his brethren of the 
Bar, do 

liesolve, 1st. That we deeply deplore the 
irreparable loss which the nation has sus- 
tained in this trying hour of its history, by 
the melancholy death of its distinguished 
Cliief Masfistrate. That it is with the mo.^t 



profound sorrow that we part with a hrother 
member of the Bar who has so long occupied 
an exalted position among us — one whose 
great ability, unblemished integrity, and 
kind and genial nature have commanded so 
much of the respect, admiration and love of 
our profession, and that with the most 
sincere grief we mourn for the death of one 
whose inestimable social qualities have so 
endeared him to us as a man. 

2nd. That a copy of these resolutions be 
presented to the Supreme Court of the State 
of Illinois, now in session, with a request 
that they be spread upon its records, and 
that a copy be sent to the Secretary of State 
of the United States, and another copy to 
the family of the deceased ; and that, to the 
members of his family we tender our heart- 
felt sympathy in their sad affliction, and our 
kindest and best wishes for their future 
prosperity." 

In the performance of the sad duty, both 
precedent and propriety will justify me in 
adding a few words, though but a few, to 
what is expressed in these resolutions. In 
any other position I might be permitted to 
speak of Mr. Lincoln as he is knoAvn to 
every inhabitant of this broad land, and as 



lie will be known in history in all future 
time — as President of tlie United States. 

Little more than four years ago he was, 
by the voice of the American people, taken 
from among us at the bar and placed over 
this great nation. In administering the 
affairs of this Government, he has, undoubt- 
edly, displayed a very high order of ability. 

At the very commencement of his admin- 
istration, a great rebellion broke out, and 
presented the question whether the light of 
this republic, which had for a few years 
shone so brightly, was but the brilliant flash 
of a meteor to illuminate the political hori- 
zon of a civilized Avorld for but a moment, 
and then go out in darkness, or was the fixed 
shining of a luminary which should point 
out to future ages the pathway to liberty, 
prosperity and happiness. 

With the aid of great men, whose names 
history will write on the same page with 
his own, and with the support of a patriotic 
people, he had put down the rebelUon, and 
already saw the angel of peace arising "with 
healing in his wings" to bless his native land, 
when he was struck down by an assassin's 
hand. He is mourned by a whole nation as 
few have been mourned before him. 



But to others we must leave the pleasing- 
task of speaking of him as the chosen ruler 
of the nation. While poets sing his praises, 
and orators proclaim his greatness as a public 
man, it becomes us, his professional brethren, 
who knew him better than strangers could 
know him, to speak of him as we knew him 
in his profession. 

For nearly thirty years was Mr. Lincoln a 
member of this bar. But few of us are left 
who preceded him. From a very early period 
he assumed a high position in his profession. 
Without the advantage of that mental culture 
which is afforded by a classical education, he 
learned the law as a science. Nature en- 
dowed him with a philosophical mind, and he 
learned and appreciated the elementary prin- 
ciples of the law, and the reasons why they had 
become established as such. He remembered 
well what he read, because he fully compre- 
hended it. He understood the relations of 
things, and hence his deductions were rarely 
wrong from any given state of facts. So he 
applied the principles of the law to the trans- 
actions of men, with great clearness and 
precision. He was a close reasoner. He 
reasoned by analogy, and usually enforced 
his views by apt illustrations. His mode of 



speaking was generally of a plain and unim- 
passioned character; and yet he was the 
author of some of the most beautiful and 
eloquent passages in our language, which if 
collected together would form a valuable 
contribution to American literature. Those 
who supposed Mr. Lincoln was destitute of 
imagination or fancy know but little of his 
mental endowments. In truth, his mind 
overflowed with pleasing imagery. 

His great reputation for integrity was well 
deserved. The most punctilious honor ever 
marked his professional and private life. 
He seemed entirely ignorant of the art of 
deception or of dissimulation. His frankness 
and candor was one great element in his 
character which contributed to his professional 
success. If he discovered a weak point in 
his cause he frankly admitted it, and thereby 
prepared the mind to accept the more readily 
his mode of avoiding it. 

I venture the assertion, that no one ever 
accused him of taking an underhanded or 
unfair advantage in the whole course of his 
professional career. He was equally potent 
before the jury as with the court. 

His personal characteristics were of the 
most pleasing kind. His heart was full of 



benevolence, and he was ever prone to put 
the most Hivorable construction upon the 
frailties of his fellow men. His hand was 
open to relieve the unfortunate, and his efforts 
were at the service of those in distress. By 
his genial nature he enlivened every circle of 
which he was a member, where he was ever 
welcome. Who of this bar does not remember 
him as of yesterday, when he was among us 
relieving the hard labors of the profession by 
his enlivening presence? He will ever be 
remembered as one of our brightest ornaments, 
whose practice reflected honor upon the pro- 
fession. If these elements of character 
inspired love for him as a professional brother, 
how much must they have endeared him to 
his own domestic circle — around his own fire- 
side ? If we feel his loss as irreparable, w^here 
but in God can be found the consolation for 
his loss as a husband and a father ? Those 
bereaved ones may well look to us who next 
to themselves knew him best of all, for that 
deep and abiding sympathy which tends to 
soften the most poignant grief; and they will 
not look in vain. Nor to his professional 
brethren alone may they look for sympathy. 
With them and us a nation mourns his 
untimely end. 



10 

I may say, without the least exaggeration, 
that humanity and civilization throughout 
the world will feel the shock vvdiich has 
draped our nation in the habiliments of woe. 

I move the Court that the resolutions of 
the Bar be spread upon its records, that those 
who come after us may read our appreciation 
of our departed brother, and that a copy of 
the record under the seal of the Court be 
furnished to the family of the deceased, that 
they may know of the deep sympathy we 
feel for them in their great bereavement, and 
that a like copy be furnished to the Secretary 
of State of the United States, that all may 
read the testimony borne by the professional 
brethren of Abraham Lincoln. 

Judge Caton then presented the resolutions 
to the Court ; whereupon Mr. Justice Breese, 
on behalf of the Court, responded as follows : 

RESPONSE BY MR. JUSTICE BREESE. 

In responding to the resolutions just pre- 
sented by the late distinguished Chief Justice 
of this court, I am instructed to say they 
meet our most cordial concurrence. They 
will be entered on the records of the Court, 
there to remain as a tribute, slight it may be, 
yet sincere, in honor and to the memory of 



11 

one who not only adorned this bar, but rose 
from it, without any intermediate step, directly 
to the highest office in the gift of a great and 
free people. 

He whose loss we all so sincerely deplore, 
for whom throughout this broad land solemn 
pageants are in mournful progress, for whom 
court rooms, halls and public edifices are 
draped in funeral emblems, testifying to a 
nation's grief, was, but four short years ago, 
an unassuming yet distinguished citizen of 
this State, in full pr.actice at the bar of this 
Court, struggling earnestly with his competi- 
tors in an arena whose honors and whose 
triumphs he so often won. 

In common with you, gentlemen, we deeply 
deplore the loss of Mr. Lincoln. We have 
always regarded the illustrious deceased as a 
man of the highest order of intellect — in 
sheer natural endowments with few superiors 
— as one with blemishes as few and as slight 
as attach to the most perfect humanity, jind 
as a statesman of no common order. But it 
becomes us, on this mournful occasion, to 
speak of him only as a man and as a lawyer 
— as a member of an honorable profession, 
from whose ranks have been taken, in times 
of the greatest emergency, men whose high 



12 

destiny it has been not only to guide the car 
of victory, but to sustain the weight of empire. 

As a man, then, and as a lawyer, ^Ir. Lin- 
coln challenged admiration not more for his 
exalted talents than for his noble, unselfish, 
sympathizing nature, giving to all his other 
estimable qualities their greatest charm. 

Mr. Lincoln possessed not only great com- 
mon sense — a thorough knowledge of men, 
for which he was indebted perhaps to his 
early training, and to the vicissitudes of his 
career ; but a generous sympathy in the sor- 
rows, troubles, and difficulties that enter into 
the great battle of life. In this battle he 
mingled fearlessly, partaking of its violent 
struggles, its cruel disappointments, its hum- 
bhng reverses. 

Not deeply read in his profession, Mr. 
Lincoln was never found deficient in all the 
knowledge requisite to present the strong 
points of his case to the best advantage, and 
by his searching analysis make clear the most 
intricate controversy. 

He was, besides, an honest lawyer, practi- 
cing none of the chicanery of the profession to 
which he was devoted, nor any of those mean 
and little and shuffling and dishonora])le arts 
which jdl do not avoid ; nor did he seek an 



13 

advantage over his adversary to which he was 
not fairly entitled, by the merits of his cause, 
and by the force of his arguments. AVith an 
exterior by no means polished, with nothing 
in the outward man to captivate, there was 
that within him, glowing in his mind, which 
enabled him to impress by the force of his 
logic, his own clear perceptions upon the 
minds of those he sought to influence. He 
was, therefore, a successful lawyer, but bore 
with humility the distinction he had won. 

For my single self, I have, for a quarter of 
a century, regarded Mr. Lincoln as the fairest 
lawyer I ever knew, and of a professional 
bearing so high-toned and honorable, as justly, 
and without derogating from the claims of 
others, entitling him to be presented to the 
profession as a model well worthy of the 
closest imitation. 

His enthusiasm, his simplicity, humor, and 
that freshness of mind, which his unpretending 
life and habits gave him, won the esteem of 
all, and these qualities were not dimmed on 
attaining the distinguished position to which 
his admiring countrymen advanced him. In 
that, as in the more humble walks of his life 
and homely social intercourse, his energy, 
his respect, his kindly humor, w^ere still seen 



(iS5- 



14 

and felt; and though a melancholy tinge 
seemed to pervade his countenance when in 
repose, no sooner was it lighted up by that 
sunny smile ever ready to play upon it, than 
the whole man was changed, and one more 
genial, frank and entertaining was rarely to 
be found. 

Nor did he, in these exhibitions of the 
native goodness of his disposition, lessen the 
dignity of his high office ; they but served to 
shed a soft beauty around it, showing that his 
heart was in kindest sympathy with the world 
without, and gave to his allegories and his anec- 
dotes in which he dehghted to indulge, a point 
and pungency quite as effective in illustrating 
a proposition as the most powerful argument. 

In his public life, Mr. Lincoln seemed to 
have been inspired by high prmciple, mani- 
festing at all times an abiding sense of solemn 
responsibility, and exerting all his influence 
for good as it appeared to him from his stand- 
point, to be best attained. 

Though many of us differed with him in his 
views of public policy, all admitted the hon- 
esty of his intentions, and cherished an abiding 
faith in his patriotism, and in his sincere desire 
to lift the country out of the troubles into 
which wicked men had involved it. 



15 
From the day of his first inauguration, ]\Ir. 
Lincoln never despaired of the final success of 
the great cause in which we had embarked, 
and his determination that he would, as the 
head of the Government, "hold, possess and 
occupy," the fortifications and other property, 
of which the Union had been despoiled, was 
on the point of accomplishment when he was 
so suddenly stricken down. In his inaugural 
he prophesied, all our people w^ould be again 
united, and harmony once more prevail ; for 
thus he spoke : 

" The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
from every battle-field and patriot grave, to 
every living heart and hearth-stone all over 
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union when touched again, as they surely 
will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

What a beautiful thought, and how beauti- 
fully expressed ? 

Why could he not have lived to witness 
this, his bright anticipation ? 

Why w^as he thus stricken down, that he 
should not enjoy the realization of this, his 
cherished hope ? 

Why was he not reserved to join in that 
chorus, so soon, we trust, to swell from the 
mystic chords the better angels of our nature 



16 

have already touched, attuning them to union, 
harmony and love ? And the more especially 
as the great drama in which he had born a 
part so conspicuous, was about to close ; and 
when, at its closing, those peculiar faculties 
he possessed — his universal kindness, his 
broad sympathies, his gentleness, his love of 
his fellow man, his conciliatory and forgiving 
nature, would have been brought into play, 
to produce, under the providence of God, 
results the most benign, stamping him in all 
future time, if not the Father, as the Great 
Restorer of the Union of the country, and the 
preserver of its most cherished institutions. 
It has been truly said that names become 
beacons in the stream of time — signal lights, 
bright or lurid, as may be, which the flow of 
ages cannot extinguish. Whose name, had he 
survived the assassin's pistol, stood a fairer 
chance than his to become that beacon — to be 
that signal light, beaming in bright effulgence 
over the world forever ? As it is, gone down 
as he has, into silence, without accomplishing 
all he desii^ed for his country, his honored 
name will be echoed this side of the grave 
" to the last syllable of recorded time." 

The critical conjunctures in which Mr. Lin- 
coln has been placed have no parallel in our 



17 

history, and throughout all of them " he has 
borne his faculties so meekly," that "his vir- 
tues plead like angels trumpet-tongued against 
the deep damnation of his taking off." 

In the death of Mr. Lincoln the world has 
lost a man of the most unbounded philan- 
thropy — the Union a most devoted friend, 
unwearying in his efforts to restore it to its 
pristine glory — this noble State its foremost 
citizen, whom all dehghted to honor — society 
one of its most exemplary members. From 
our professional circle we grieve to know one 
of its brightest gems has dropped away. We 
are powerless to restore it to its setting, but 
we will ever remember its brilliancy, and 
never cease to admire the unsulHed purity of 
its nature. 

After the response of Mr. Justice Breese, 
the Chief Justice remarked that, in view of 
the final ceremonies to take place on to-mor- 
row, upon the interment of the remains of 
our late Chief Magistrate, and as further 
mark of respect to his memory, the Court 
would adjourn until Friday at 9 o'clock. The 
Court accordingly adjourned. 



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